ALIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD
My Life In and Out of Jazz Time
By Lorraine Gordon as told to Barry Singer
Hardcover; $27.95
“It's a very sexy game, jazz.”
Lorraine Gordon, proprietor of the Village Vanguard and one of the
first ladies of jazz for more than 60 years, has just released her
memoirs, Alive at the Village Vanguard: My Life In and Out of Jazz
Time. Since the 1940s, Lorraine has personally known, worked with and
booked at her club all the greats of the jazz world, and the story
of her life is truly fascinating. Alive at the Village Vanguard
includes Eartha Kitt, Lenny Bruce, Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis,
Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Thelonious Monk, Louis
Armstrong, Henry Kissinger, Nina Simone, Oscar Peterson, Allen
Ginsburg, Andy Warhol, Harry Belafonte, Nichols and May, Barbra
Streisand, Carol Burnett, Pete Seeger, Adolph Green, Betty Comden,
Leonard Bernstein, Woody Allen, Maya Angelou, Jonathan Winters, and
many, many more.
Available now worldwide, in stores and online, from Hal Leonard
Performing Arts Book Group. Publication date is December 20.
About Lorraine Gordon:
1937: Jazz aficionado from the age of fourteen. “I collected jazz
records like a maniac. It was serious stuff and we treated it
seriously--we read all the books, we listened to every recording ever
made, we knew who the soloists were by their sound.”
1942: Married Blue Note Records founder Alfred Lion. “I learned to
type. I did all the bookkeeping. And though I didn't know what public
relations meant, I did that too. We were little people in a little
business. But we were selling something fabulous.”
1947: Discovered and championed Thelonious Monk. “We all sat down on
Monk's narrow bed--our legs straight out in front of us like children.
The door closed. And Monk played, with his back to us. Thelonious
Monk became my personal mission. Did his records sell at first? No. I
went up to Harlem and those record stores didn't want Monk or me.”
1950: Married Village Vanguard and Blue Angel proprietor Max Gordon.
”The Village Vanguard had started out as Max Gordon's living room.
Max was a writer, a poet, a thinker. Max Gordon truly was a
Bohemian.”
1961: Women Strike for Peace. “I wound up handling all the New York
press relations, as well as marching, and I hosted evenings galore.
We were forever demonstrating in Washington. We lobbied our senators.
We attended disarmament conferences all over the world.”
1965: Traveled secretly to North Vietnam from the Soviet Union. “You
couldn't eat, sleep or drink without reading about the Vietnam War.
Half of America was against it. You can't just sit there. There was a
group of North Vietnamese women we had made contact with who were
looking to end the war. Let's see, we said, if Lorraine can get to
North Vietnam...”
1989: Assumed the helm at The Village Vanguard upon Max Gordon's
death. “I certainly had no fear. I just got into the swim as fast as
I could; just held my nose and jumped in. I didn't arrive at The
Village Vanguard out of the blue. I stuck to what I loved. That was
my art. Throughout my life I followed the course of the music that I
loved. I loved jazz. And what I loved was terrific.”
2006: Now 84 years young and as impresario of The Village Vanguard,
Lorraine Gordon remains a force of pure inspiration: “Life is so
beautiful when you're passionate about something, when you're
committed.”
Posted by: Jazz Promo Services
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